Best Practices for Mentoring in Arts Entrepreneurship Education: Findings From a Delphi Study

Abstract

Arts entrepreneurship education is a multifaceted endeavor encompassing a diversity of learning contexts, from collegiate lecture halls to close apprenticeships and one-on-one coaching. Although existing research explores best practices for the arts entrepreneurship classroom, relatively few studies have been undertaken to explore the role of mentoring in arts endeavoring, the effectiveness of mentoring as a targeted pedagogical approach, and how mentoring might complement or even conflict with the tenets of classroom-based arts entrepreneurship education. The purpose of this study was to build consensus among established arts entrepreneurship educators regarding optimal mentoring activities, outcomes, and competencies. Eleven experts in the field of arts entrepreneurship participated in a multiphase Delphi procedure to generate and subsequently evaluate approaches to, and outcomes and characteristics of, effective mentoring. The result is a set of 43 expert-approved recommendations that can inform mentoring practice immediately and provide a foundation for future research in this still-emerging area of inquiry.